The Anchoress offers a must-read list of predictions for 2006. Among the more delectable:


“3) President Bush will not be impeached over the FISE/NSA matter; his poll numbers will continue to rise as Americans – no longer distracted with Christmas – follow the story and realize that the NY Times and much of the Fourth Estate have become a Fifth Column.


“4) The WaPo will pull back from that story. The NY Times, mad with hate, will run over a cliff with it. The L.A. Times will save itself….


“10) Paris will burn, coverage will be scant.


“11) Howard Dean will not be DNC chair by the end of the year. He will be replaced by affable eye candy of some sort, capable of bumper-sticker-speak. John Kerry will make all sorts of noises about running again for the WH, but at the last possible moment, he will declare himself uninterested due to his deep committment to the people of Massachusetts. A quick search through his Beacon Hill garbage will reveal a bloody horse’s head.”


Betcha all of ’em come true myself. And now, to end 2005 with a giggle, is this insane screed on the Huffington Post from Jane Smiley, a sometime novelist who now has a new career as an astute political analyst::


“The conservative caste of mind is different from the liberal caste of mind, and much of what we believe is dictated by temperament. For example, I’ve noticed that for most liberals, the greatest sin is murder. Liberals recoil at harming others. The fact that the Iraq war has physically harmed tens of thousands of Iraqis, not to mention many thousands of American soldiers, is the red letter immorality that defines that misadventure for liberals. If they reluctantly supported the war, those deaths and injuries are the hardest sticking point; if they never supported the war, those deaths are the most unforgivable horror.


“Conservatives, though, don’t really mind doing harm to others, even murder, especially if they add the phrase, ‘for your own good.’ After all, people get harmed all the time–the world, to a natural conservative, is a harmful place and a vale of tears. To a conservative, the greatest crime is betrayal of the tribe, and if worst comes to worst, better that those outside the tribe (often not even defined as human) come to grief (get injured, get raped, lose everything, get killed, let’s be honest) in preference to oneself or one’s allies. To a true conservative, it doesn’t matter that Jesus’s number one rule was to do unto others as you would have them do unto you–they somehow read this as do unto others before they do unto you. Conservatives, I think, have a stronger flight/fight response than liberals. They are both more fearful and more aggressive. It shows in their religion (God is someone to fear), it shows in their child-rearing techniques (beatings,whippings, spankings are to be administered, not avoided), it shows in their attitude toward marriage and sexuality (conforming to one’s own strict moral standards isn’t enough–others must conform, also, or the whole society is in danger). To the conservative mind, harm may be justifiably done to others who do not conform. Doing harm to others is a relative evil, not an absolute one. It is, you might say, an aspect of winning.”


Ah, yes, we conservatives! Our motto: First do plenty of harm. I could say much in response to Jane’s rant, but gotta go whip some small children and cringe at God. Happy 2006 and see ya Tuesday!